OF NATURAL HISTORY. 57 



placid, and excite in us ideas of mildnefs, complacency, and inno- 

 cence. The ferocity of the tyger and hyaena forms a perfect con- 

 traft to the gentlenefs and inoffenfive behaviour of the flieep and 

 the ox. This oppofition of manners has given rife to the diRindtion of 

 animals into rapacious and mild, carnivorous and herbivorous. In 

 the ftrudure of thefe animals, whofe charafters are fo oppofite, fome 

 differences have been difcovered, which indicate the intentions of 

 Nature in forming them, and fully juftify the feeming cruelty of 

 their conduit. 



In all the carnivorous tribes, the ftomach is proportionally.fmaller, 

 and the intcftines fhorter, than in thofe animals which feed upon ve- 

 getables. As animals of the former kind live folely on flefh, the (hort- 

 nefs and narrownefs of their inteftines are accommodated to the na- 

 ture of their food. Animal food is more eafily reduced to chyle, 

 and becomes fooner putrid, than vegetable. Ofcourfe, if its juices 

 were allowed to remain long in the inteftines, inftead of nourifhing 

 the body, they would produce the moft fatal diftempers. Befide 

 this accommodation of the inteftines to the nature of their food, 

 carnivorous animals are furnifhed with the neceflary inftruments 

 for feizing and devouring their prey. Their heads are roundifh, 

 their jaws ftrong, and their tufks very long and iharp. Some of 

 them, as the lion, the tyger, and the whole cat-kind, are provided 

 with long retraftile claws. Thus both the internal and external 

 ftruflure of this clafs of animals indicate their deftlnation and man- 

 ners. The rapid digeftion of their food is a confequence of the 

 ftiength and fliortnefs of their inteftines ; and the intolerable cra- 

 vings of their appetite neceflarily create a fiercenefs and rapacity 

 of difpofition. Nothing lefs than blood can fatiate them. Their 

 cruelty, and the devaftation they make among the weaker and more 

 timid tribes, are effeds refulting folely from the ftrudure and organs 

 with which Nature has thought proper to endow them. Hence if 

 t H there 



